Under the Influence (a links-intensive reverie of art and design)

Goodbye 2016, ending in a few hours.  2016, don't come back.  What a terrible year!

No word from Dana.  I did get the address right, didn't I?  From the one on 45th? 

I've spent some time lately thinking about old influences, those things that sparked an interest in art, specifically portraiture.  The earliest I can recall is a board game one of my older sisters had called "Mystery Date", back in Vallejo when I was two or three.  In the center of the board was a plastic device resembling a door.  Inside the device was a stack of cards each with a depiction of a potential blind date.  Presumably a bunch of girls would play together, seeing who gets the dreamboat and who gets the nerd or the slob.   There was probably a jock.  This was the late 60s, btw.  I was fascinated first by the device itself: the door when clicked would open to a random card in the pack.  How did this work?  That's the kind of thing I might have pursued in school had any such course presented itself, but none ever did.  I had a mind for such things.  I was equally fascinated by the full-body artwork of the characters, such a variety of people - though all boys, and now that I think of it not such a variety as to offend conservative family ideals of the era.  For example, I don't recall any greasers or bikers in the bunch.  No non-Caucasians, certainly.  https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=mystery+date&FORM=HDRSC2

I can place a set of books from that time as well, because we were in Vallejo.  We had a set of readers which sampled stories, and presumably works of literature for all ages.  Each volume was a different color, and one was for children.  Only one was ever used with me...light blue?  I think?  Each story was illustrated by a different artist, so there were a great many styles.  Stories included 'Me and My Shadow", something about a set of Chinese brothers, one about a dragon with a voracious appetite for balls of cheese...but there was one illustration that fueled my imagination  more than any other, and that one I believe belonged not to the story books but possibly to an encyclopedia or dictionary.  It was one of the classic series by Henrique Alvim Correa.  See the link for his beautifully imaginative pieces for the H.G. Wells novel: http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2015/04/henrique-alvim-correa-war-of-worlds.html .  The particular work that I was seeing as a  child is labelled "Martian Viewing Drunken Crowd" and is seventh from the top.  The night we left Vallejo, California for Portland Oregon, we passed a water tower in the dark.  I was convinced the tower was watching us and making up its mind whether to attack or let us pass.

When I was around seven or eight, I had a set of playing cards called "Authors".  These were a variation on the game "Go Fish" with classic literature as a theme.  As a device for educating, I suppose it must have been somewhat effective in that it made me curious about the life and art of being an author, though looking at the list I have read almost none of the authors or their works.  Shame.  I was taken, though, with the faces.  Some seemed dull,  some chilly or distant, some fiery, some stylish.  So, each story comes from an individual mind - from a unique personality?  Imagine that.  Was Robert Louis Stevenson's hair really purple?  What must be have said about him when he went out to dinner?  And Nathaniel Hawthorne must have dyed his hair to get it so yellow.  You can see these are watercolors.  I think I was intrigued by the unfinished nature of the clothing and backgrounds, not as a stylistic solution but for the problem itself - how to trail off a portrait, what information is really necessary.  For example, the color of Sir Walter Scott's jacket and the cut of his collar clearly indicated antiquity of a romanticized era, I knew that visually alone.  The lace worn by Louisa May Alcott suggested gentility and a matronly mind.  Stevenson was clearly a gentleman but one (the suit) but one of mystery and perhaps a forbidding or dark nature (the violet that infuses the entire image).

By then I was already well in tune with the more fanciful notions of the mind, ala science fiction nd horror.  Horror, that's  subject enough for a post of its own as  the horror  community tends to be viewed with a prejudiced eye, but I can tell you it's not the violence that allures but the quality of the unknown - of what can't be seen or understood easily.  It's also a matter of the outliers of society, the secrets, the taboos and inhibitions. 

By the mid-Seventies I had been checking out library books about horror films when I discovered Forrest J. Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.  Perhaps by then I'd already been buying the plastic model kits of classic monsters from Aurora and loving the box artwork - which for my era had been rendered garish for the glow-in-the-dark editions.  Those too come into play as artistic influences, mostly in ways that are only now manifesting (well, 'now' being the last two decades, still exploring).  The imagery in Famous Monsters lured me in, but it was the painted covers that set me  alight.  So expressive! Lurid, some of them, yes, but also sublime.  I was especially drawn to  covers  featuring  the The Phantom of the Opera, in particular the skeletal face of Lon Chaney's Phantom and the romantic/mysterious mask of Claude Rains' Phantom...the way it suited his face, those eyes like the eyes of the mask Yvonne Craig wore as Batgirl in the '66 TV show.

That was the kind of work I wanted to do.  I do not mean the  subject matter, necessarily, though I have an affinity for it...but the textures, the style, the expressiveness.  I regret not having explored color previously.

Since I am mentioning Famous Monsters, I must also mention the anthology periodicals also published by Warren at that time: Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.  As it happened, I only had a single issue of any of them, which was bought by someone else and fell into my hands. The artwork inside was in black and white, mostly peen and ink, in a variety of voices.  That alone stirred me.  It was a plus that some of the stories included nudity at an age when I was forbidden such material.  I could marvel over the covers, alas that I could never find a store willing to carry Vampirella .

Those works helped lead me to the art of Frank Frazetta and from him to Boris Valllejo.  I don't care for the goofy machismo of either, but the women are amazing and so are Frazetta's textures.  later I would be taken with the fantasy work of Michael Whelan - beginning with his covers for the Heinlein's Friday and the Pern series of books of Anne Mccaffrey.

Being an avid watcher of television, I bought TV guide when that magazine still had some meaning and style.  The covers by Amsel caught my eye, he was another with a strong individual vise I wanted to learn from.   What Amsel brings to the table is a style that points to itself, a mix of realism and fancy that I have yet to reach...but then I've not consciously attempted it, rather finding beauty in work that remains "unfinished" as a means of pointing to  the work as an art form.  One of Amsel's disciples is Drew Struzan, another whose work I love.

That's where most of my inspirations are from, artwork for movies and  television.  It was in TV Guide that I found Frazettas work for Battlestar Galactica and The Gauntlet (Clint Eastwood movie).  I was getting heavily into movie soundtracks and was entranced by posters from the most dynamic of all my favorite artists, Bob Peak.

I'm also influenced by the look of the movies and shows themselves.  Irwin Allen  had a knack for good concepts and a penchant to let them turn into childish drivel once they hit the air.  Lucky for me I was too young  to assess the quality of Lost in Space...but it was pretty powerful thing for a child. Home means a lot to children: imagine a home that can take off and land, even travel in space?  That was the Jupiter 2.  The design of that ship and of the B-9 Robot are classic and very much of their era (the  work of Robert Kinoshita, who also designed Robby the Robot.  A neighbor's car was a 1959 Brookwood, which to me looked very much of the same visual style as Lost in Space.  Our own  car was similar, the 1960 Ford Galaxie station wagon, but I always misremembered the Brookwood as ours.  Later the designs of artists like Ralph McQuarrie, Ron Cobb, and Syd Mead.  Then there's the nightmare sleekness of H.R. Giger.

See also the designs for Gerry Anderson's UFO and Space:1999, Kubrick's 2001...the design of the classic Klingon battlecruiser from the original Star Trek...the Mach 5 from Speed Racer...the Flying Sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the Spindrift from Land of the Giants.  These are the icons of my dreams. 

As a child, the space race filled me with awe.  The Apollo CSM may have been our greatest achievement at the time but for looks it didn't have the beauty or mystique of the LEM or the Gemini craft.  I've always had a soft spot for the Soyuz as well,  which must have been a decent design as it is still in use today.

Don't even get me started on cars...(the '66 Batmobile, classic Corvettes and Thunderbirds, Supervan...)

Devotees of any of these fields may be disappointed that I have not pointed to artists who are more obscure.  I'm sorry, I was always a pop culture kid and still am.  The point is to be honest, and honestly this is the art that made me want to create.

Do the Math

(night of December 9th)

I hab a code.  A code!  Idd by doze, a code.  Add by thwoat.*

Not doing too bad for having had only three broken hours of sleep over the course of last night, and kept waking in a cold sweat as the toxins seep out, and having been up for a long time now.  No point laying down if my nose won't clear.    Not desperate for sleep yet, doing okay...want to push it as long as I can or until my nasal passages clear long enough to be worth the attempt .   This is the aspect of colds i hate most, needing to sleep and not being able to.

What I want to do is create, suddenly I'm in the zone.  To draw, paint, build, sculpt.  Anything.  Now, when I'm sick??  Okay, sure, why not?  I need to do something if it  isn't sleeping.  My workspace is again not cleared for it but I can try.  Maybe I don't need a specific image, just some detail I like.     I've been pointed toward a home-made modeling putty that might finally be the right medium for sculpting details.  Unfortunately, the details would have to be fine, a little at a time when I'd rather be working in bulk.  Simple stuff, superglue and baby powder.  haven't got any to try yet, way shot on money.

I want to post, I want to post tonight if possible and I would like to add some image to justify it.  Anything, new or old.  Maybe I'll check out what little is on my flashdrives.  (Oops.  No, that was the flashdrive I lost.)  New would be better though that means waiting.  It's...oh, it's a mood thing.  the dream below was a mood thing.  We...need...to...express. At some point, everyone is on fire with a need to be heard about something.
  
Expression is very much on my mind lately, especially given the election.  If you don't know why then you have not been paying attention to the news.  It is a cherished American right and we are in serious danger of throwing it away mindlessly. 

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There's a  group on IMDb that picks short-lived Tv shows, watches an episode every Firday, and discusses them.  We recently finished Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's UFO, and I posted each of my own reviews to my other blog.  Might as well, it hasn't seen any other activity.  We are now voting  on  what to watch next.  Possibly Twin Peaks or Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

(Blog, what an odd word.  Sounds perfect to decribe how this cold makes me feel.  Blug.  Blogh.)
We voted a name for ourselves,  we are now The Sages of the Single Season (our motto: "We have episodes").**  I suggested The Idiot Box Savants, but it would probably offend someone. 
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Dana, grab a pen and something to write on.  Add 2129 to the address you lived at when we were in school.  Clatsop, that's me.  You can check a zip code map but I think it's the same yours was.  Whatever you've  chosen, at least don't leave me in the dark.  I've earned this, goddammit.

 Can you tell your story to yourself?  Because if you can, then  you can tell it to me.  Write it down, just for yourself.  Try it. 

Challenge me.  Tell me the one thing you've  least wanted me to know, even if its' just an imaginary exercize.  Find out if I react the way  you're afraid I will. You've lost me already anyway by your own choice, so what's to lose?  I'm not going to keep thinking well of you the way things are now. 
I keep  trying to challenge you and you never step up, so you challenge me instead.  See if it turns me away.
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One of the best dreams I ever had of Dana was many years ago (mid-'90s?), was one in which I actually got to be Dana for just a few minutes.  I cannot give a couple of prominenent details, but as briefly as I can: it starts with me (as myself) listening to a live radio talk show, late-night programming.  Dana is the in-studio guest, and she tells her audience of this guy she used to know.  Though she does not name me she knows that if I hear it I will know. She wants very much to think that I am listening out here somewhere.   I'm  an anecdote, and she fuels herself with the venom with which she relates it.  She wants to hurt me and by doing so,  she wants me to feel and comprehend her own hurt.   I do not recall where I am, maybe Northern California (that rings true), in a bar IIRC (not my kind of setting).

Dream then  segues to L.A. after the show.  I am Dana and I have no awareness of being anyone but Dana.  I have driven into the Hollywood hills, not apparently to my home but to some clinic where I will spend the night.  I am alone in a large room full of beds for patients, all empty.  I have the place to myself, and I deserve it.  I need this privacy.  The room is locked, no one will  disturb me.  I should sleep but can't, and sit in bed with my back to the headboard, restless, until the pentup energy makes me throw open the bay windows that overlook the city lights.  It's a hot summer night, now after one in the morning.   Music plays on the radio and I dance.  I want to tell the world, scream at the world, rage at the world to go fuck itself,  go to hell, burn, eat shit and die.  I (Dana) feel empowered by my outrage, which I have fucking earned.  I have a vague impression of Madonna from the song I dance to, as if I look to Madonna as a role model of personal power, a strong professional woman who rigorously controls her own identity and image and will let no one take that from her.

If that was just purely my own imagination, in a way I don't care...it was intimate and exhilerating!  
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(evening, December 10th) Finally slept, still stuffy, probably another long night ahead.  Eyes are sore and keep watering, they demand rest. 

*Oooooooh...and my cough, it's been a while since my cough was bad enough that I grey out, but that's started up again.  What a strange sensation, as the brain starts to come 'round again, dizzy, aware of sounds and images swirling around me but they're too choppy to make sense of...happened just now.

** It's not but it should be.

"Beware the Monkey"

That's what she said, the total stranger waiting for the bus.  Then she explained that she was referring to the Year of the Monkey in Chinese astrology.   It was meant to bring ill luck to everyone - bad, but supposedly not lasting and that something good is meant to come of it.  (Shaking head slowly) 2016 has been a ruinous year for almost everyone I have encountered.

I didn't tell her that my online aliases are all ape-based.

Mom was supposed to have some test results coming  that would lead to a decision on whether treatment would even be feasible.  I never hear back on that, so either no decision was made or (more likely) I have been kept in the dark about it.  Now mom seems to be getting some of the earlier symptoms back again.  Bracing for another season of panic and hopelessness.  I almost drowned once as a child, and this feels like a slow-motion version of that.

The election results promise that the bad has gone from personal to national if not global.  The Year of the Monkey does not end until January 28th.  Fuck.

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Maybe I should attempt line drawings, pen and ink.  Try for the 'adult coloring book' aesthetic that's the current fad?  It would be an interesting exercise if nothing else, get me far away from my usual thought process for drawing and focus on composition.  Theme?  Pages from  Stoker's Dracula, or positions of the Kama Sutra might be good.  I did a few sketches once of the actor Henry Irving as Dracula, seeing that Stoker had hoped Irving would play the role.  What else?  Kama Sutra would sell if I did a good job and found someone who could put them out, but from an artist's perspective seems kinda dry.  No variety to the sex itself, so that would be a challenge...strictly male-female couplings, one-on-one, no fetishes so I'd have to vary up everything else about the images.  Not into drawing men, either, but I'd want it to be inclusive.  Plenty of variety in people themselves.  So, the Kama Sutra, that angle sounds  a little dull but it would be a good marketing hook.  KS is more than just a catalog of positions, but that's the popular perception.  Have to admit I have not read it.

I almost (almost) wish I knew someone in video production.  Caught part of a movie review show on local cable access.  Kudos to them for actually making it happen, right?  Beyond that...hate to criticize them for the effort but it was dire.  So it made me want to try it myself.  On the other hand that might mean having to watch myself in order to edit...a prospect I loathe almost as much as having to hear my recorded voice played back.  Still, might be worth it to bring more attention to the movies of Shinya Tsukamoto.  I might not be up to reviewing Sion Sono as I don't have a bead on his work, but I do have a decent collection of his to work from.  Actually, I'm looking for anything I feel inspired to review and mostly coming up blank.   I  tried to write up Blue is the Warmest Color a year ago and it read more like a sociopolitical lecture than a review (I'm pro-, not anti-).  Jesseca has suggested Paul Naschy.    I have a few but they are all censored versions.  Most of the directors I've collected are mainstream, thus already well covered.  Argento is so well-read that I miss most of his influences  from Jung to classical artists of every field.   Ah, you can tell by my mood  that, um, I'm in a mood.   Anyway, Jesseca and I batted around a few ideas, if I could get Scott  to shoot me with his phone discussing movies and zip the files to her in New York, she could play around with them.  Full production, I'd love to do a Sinister Simian show for the Portland cable access market.  At least here the Sinister Cinema nod would be appreciated.  I wonder if I could manage a Planet of the Apes styled makeup job to turn me into a macaque like my avatar...that could be fun!

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The morning before Thanksgiving I dreamt of seeing Dana on TV, co-anchoring some half-hour news-magazine.  Her hair was straight, medium-short, and lighter.  Strange thing is I can't recall ever seeing her wear her hair this way in real life yet I've seen her look this way a number of times in my dreams.  Don't know why.  I reached out to caress her cheek but all I could feel was hard, cold glass.

(earlier today) Dreamt of Dana as a talk-show host interviewing her own alter ego.  She glanced at me watching the interview and seemed upset thinking that I preferred the exaggerated persona rather than her complete, authentic self.

Not quite two years since I reached out to her on FaceBook.  Though I want nothing more to do with FB, I keep hoping that my gmail will tell me she's sent a  friend request.   Someone looked at her page back then and told me that she was living with a guy. She could have children don't know.   I didn't want to know she was with someone , but okay... that wasn't unexpected.  She's probably with him still.  Well, I'm only asking her to open up a conversation with me as a friend so that's not a reason she can't talk  with me.

If I was ever going to fall out of love with her it would have happened a long time ago.  It's never going to stop hurting that I also lost her as a friend.  Funny thing is that if we did ever become a pair I don't know if we'd even be happy with each other.   No dream ever promised any such thing.  I saw little beyond us meeting again.  I held her in my arms once in real life (backstage after a show - she wouldn't have guessed what it meant to me).  I'd like that again.